With landmark 10-year investment, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation will deliver more local, timely health evidence worldwide

SEATTLE — The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent research organization at the University of Washington, has received a landmark 10-year grant from the Gates Foundation to strengthen freely available, scientifically rigorous health evidence used by governments, researchers, and leaders to improve the health and well-being of people in Washington, the United States, and around the world.

IHME is part of the UW School of Medicine, and the $540.2 million investment will provide long-term support for expanding the Global Burden of Disease study to provide health data for thousands of new areas. GBD is the most comprehensive assessment of health trends and conditions across countries. Under the grant, GBD will expand from roughly 925 locations today to nearly 5,000 — a major expansion in the geographic detail available to the people making decisions. The grant will also support IHME’s health forecasting and future-scenarios work, and its tracking of health spending worldwide.

Together, these resources help decision-makers, researchers, and health professionals understand the health challenges people face today, anticipate what is coming next, and determine how limited resources can be used most effectively to improve health.

This investment will allow us to provide high-quality evidence at a much more local level and help leaders understand not only where health is improving or worsening, but which decisions can make the greatest difference for people.

“Reliable and independent evidence can mean the difference between reacting to a health crisis after it has taken hold and acting early enough to change its course,” said Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray, IHME director and professor of health metrics sciences. “This investment will allow us to provide high-quality evidence at a much more local level and help leaders understand not only where health is improving or worsening, but which decisions can make the greatest difference for people.”

Murray, the grant’s principal investigator, started the Global Burden of Disease study in the early 1990s and has led its development since, in collaboration with a global research network now spanning more than 150 countries and territories.

The Gates Foundation, along with the state of Washington, provided the founding investment that established IHME at the University of Washington in 2007, creating an independent institute dedicated to measuring the world’s most pressing health challenges and evaluating whether policies and programs are improving people’s lives. Its sustained support has helped build the field of health metrics itself. IHME has developed many of the methods and standards the field now relies on and has helped collaborators contribute to the field as well. The new grant builds on that longstanding partnership and provides a base for IHME’s next phase of growth.

The UW is committed to improving the health of people in Washington and around the world, and this investment will expand IHME’s already significant impact, which will mean longer, healthier lives for countless people.

“Every government and funder faces difficult decisions about where to invest limited resources for greatest impact, and those decisions depend on trusted evidence,” said Mark Suzman, Chief Executive Officer of the Gates Foundation. “For nearly two decades, IHME has been one of the foundation’s most important global partners, helping us, governments, researchers, and global health partners around the world understand where health is improving, where progress is stalling, and where action is needed most. Our long-term commitment recognizes the value of this work to strengthen a shared evidence base that will continue to inform decisions to improve—and save—millions of lives.”

The Global Burden of Disease network has grown to more than 20,000 collaborators in over 150 countries and territories: researchers, clinicians, government analysts, and policymakers who contribute to the study’s data and methods and carry health measurement into their own institutions and ministries. This next phase of IHME’s work is an opportunity to consolidate that foundation and extend it considerably further.

The grant comes as countries confront overlapping health threats and growing pressure on public and global health budgets. By producing more detailed, timely, and forward-looking evidence, IHME aims to help leaders identify urgent needs, prepare health systems, and invest in policies and programs most likely to prevent illness, disability, and premature death.

The award is the largest charitable grant ever given to the University of Washington.

“The Gates Foundation has been a steadfast partner of the University of Washington for decades, and we are grateful for its generous support. The UW is committed to improving the health of people in Washington and around the world, and this investment will expand IHME’s already significant impact, which will mean longer, healthier lives for countless people,” said UW President Robert J. Jones.

IHME’s research and findings are freely available to countries, researchers, and communities regardless of their income or access to commercial data systems.

“We are deeply grateful to the Gates Foundation for this extraordinary investment in IHME and the University of Washington School of Medicine,” said Dr. Timothy Dellit, CEO of UW Medicine and dean of the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Their longstanding partnership has helped make it possible for IHME to deliver trusted health evidence around the world. This new grant will extend that impact by giving leaders data that are comprehensive and comparable to guide decisions that help improve the health of communities and save lives.”

Global Burden of Disease: more local and forward-looking health evidence

IHME plans to significantly expand the geographic detail available through the Global Burden of Disease study, the world’s largest systematic effort to measure deaths, illness, disability, injuries, and health risks.

The study currently produces estimates for approximately 925 locations; with the grant, that number is expected to grow to nearly 5,000, allowing IHME to sustain global public goods so countries can rely on them to inform their decision-making. IHME works with more than 20,000 collaborators worldwide to produce the GBD.

More localized evidence can help leaders see health disparities that national averages may obscure, including where maternal or child deaths are rising, which diseases are straining health systems, where prevention efforts are falling behind, and which populations are being missed.

GBD estimates, together with IHME’s forecasts and its accounting of global health spending, have been cited in nearly 8,000 policy documents worldwide, including national health strategies, benefit packages, monitoring frameworks, and decisions about budgets and program implementation. Governments in every region draw on them to set national targets, design benefit packages, and weigh competing priorities, and they are relied on in turn by multilateral agencies, funders, researchers, and journalists. For many countries, IHME’s estimates remain the only comparable measure available of what their populations are dying from and living with.

Health Forecasting: looking ahead of crises

The grant will expand IHME’s health forecasts and future scenarios. IHME produces forecasts through 2100 for every country, helping leaders anticipate how population change, disease trends, health risks, and policy choices may affect future needs. The forecasts indicate that rapid change in disease and risk factor profiles is expected in the next decades along with a huge shift in the world’s population toward sub-Saharan Africa.

IHME plans to make those forecasts more geographically detailed, connect them more closely to the latest disease burden findings, and develop more customizable scenarios for individual countries—helping decision-makers assess possible responses before preventable health problems become crises.

Global Health Financing: connecting health needs with health spending

The investment will sustain and expand IHME’s independent tracking of health financing, including development assistance, government spending, private spending, and the money people pay directly for care.

IHME’s annual Financing Global Health report provides a comprehensive accounting of health spending across 204 countries. The work helps governments and funders assess whether resources are reaching the populations, diseases, and places with the greatest needs.

IHME will examine how governments respond when outside funding declines and forecast health expenditures through 2100.

By connecting financial information with disease burden estimates and forecasts, IHME can help leaders understand the consequences of funding decisions and their impact on health systems.

About the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is an independent population health research organization at the University of Washington School of Medicine. IHME provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. IHME works with a global network of more than 20,000 collaborators, and its research and data are made freely available to policymakers, researchers, health leaders, and the public.

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